


i fell upon my sword, my sword it was your love

by Anonymous



Series: AHS fic anon [1]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Acrophobia, F/F, Minor Violence, Panic Attacks, Soft!Mina, highly improper use of trust falls, jeff and mutt being jeff and mutt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28499067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: You told her, youtoldher you wouldn’t embarrass her in public, wouldn’t be the weak link in her impenetrable armor, you told her you could keep your relationship separate from work-(But right now, you want your Mina. You want the woman that holds you like you’ll disappear, that touches you like she can’t believe you’ve given her permission to do so. You want the woman that sets aside her rules to make you happy, who judges the world but has never judged you.You want the woman that only exists when the rest of the world isn’t looking, and you feel guilty for being so weak.)
Relationships: Wilhemina Venable/Original Female Character(s), Wilhemina Venable/You, wilhemina venable/reader
Series: AHS fic anon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131674
Comments: 1
Kudos: 67
Collections: Anonymous





	i fell upon my sword, my sword it was your love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softsparrillas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softsparrillas/gifts).



> For mssallymckenna:
> 
> Heard you liked soft!Mina. 
> 
> Wink wonk,  
> fic anon

Oh, this is some bullshit.

You’ve been repeating that phrase to yourself the entire week, but it bears repeating _one more time_ as you stare at the structure in front of you.

It’s not completely surprising that for a company as notable and profitable as Kineros Robotics, there’s an actual week-long “team building” camp, but what _is_ surprising is the fact it’s not the mid-level or higher-up positions that attend.

“All of our entry-level staff complete the exercise,” Wilhemina had explained with a knowing smirk on her face. “Attendance is mandatory.”

You’d spluttered nonsensically for a moment, incredulous that this was somehow what your professional life had come to, before demanding why you hadn’t been required to attend during the first year of your employment.

That too, of course, had an easy explanation from Wilhemina: numbers. Your first year with Kineros hadn’t had enough new employees to justify hosting the camp, but now that positions have rotated and a new batch of entry-level staff has been added, there’s more than enough people to fill out the activity groups.

Jeff and Mutt apparently _love_ the camp, and with the dorm-style housing sitting next to their dual private cabins on grounds completely booked for just Kineros staff, you can’t imagine why they wouldn’t insist on participating.

What you can’t figure out is Wilhemina’s participation, and even _enjoyment_ , of the exercise.

You’re in the middle of the woods, rooming in dorms with actual bunk beds, sharing communal bathroom facilities, eating cafeteria-style in a mess hall, and all that before the actual ordeal of the bonding exercises dotted over the expansive grounds. Admittedly, you and Wilhemina have only been together for eight months or so, but you can’t find a single thing on that list you’d be willing to say she enjoyed.

This also has an explanation.

“It’s ridiculousness of the highest order, and don’t think I didn’t shut it down the first dozen times those idiots suggested it,” Wilhemina had sworn, tapping her cane to emphasize her point, “but the truth of it is, the idiocy _works_. I still long for a day I no longer have to suffer fools in our office, but every group that’s participated has had a marked improvement in work efficiency and reduction in interpersonal conflict.”

It also didn’t take long for you to realize her senior position exempted her from active participation, meaning the camp was merely an excuse for a week’s worth of real-time observation and immediate judgment of every failure enacted by the camp’s participants, including her bosses.

Even now, she was sitting at a distance “supervising” the proceedings, lounging comfortably in a lawn chair, an honest-to-god parasol tucked into the corner of one arm to shade her fair skin from the California sun.

“ _Bullshit_ ,” you repeat under your breath as you stare up at today’s morning activity.

It’s a sturdily built wooden structure, perhaps similar to a catwalk if you had to try and describe it. From the ground it looks more like a wall, but you can see there’s a platform at the top with a railing at the back, and ladders on either side to climb up and down. You’ve never been good estimating height or distance, but it seems like the platform is six-and-a-half, seven feet up? Taller than you by a decent margin.

The activity’s proctor, some blank-faced, quiet man hired to walk your group through these bonding exercises, had already given the instruction to find a way to get a member of the group off the ground and onto the platform without using the ladders - or touching the wall.

Jeff and Mutt are at the front of the group - they’ve completed all these activities multiple times and, for once, know what they’re doing.

“Bullshit,” you mutter one last time as you step forward to help your group begin to lift Jeff up.

It takes some doing, but you get him up there, and the proctor instructs you to lift another person onto the platform. Mutt volunteers himself, and you struggle less to get him on the platform with Jeff able to assist from above.

From the ground, the wall is a decent height to look at, but certainly not towering. That perspective changes with Jeff and Mutt standing upright starting at seven feet off the ground, and you sway dizzily as you chance a glance directly up at their faces.

The proctor instructs that a third be lifted to the platform, and your stomach drops as Jeff’s roaming gaze settles on you.

“Y/N!” he calls down with a grin, beckoning you to the front of the group. Mutt’s attention swivels around as well, and he drops into a crouch to smile and hold out his hands expectantly.

Well, fuck.

You were really hoping to not be the first one up on the platform after your bosses, but they’re your _bosses_ , and no one’s said anything but you can imagine your participation here will end up on your yearly evaluation for the company. 

In other words, your job depends on playing nice.

As you step forward, your coworkers beginning to group around you to lift and support you onto the platform, you also can’t avoid the knowledge that Wilhemina is watching right now, watching _you_ , and if she’s agreed to go along with this insanity, then you’d do well to go along with it as well.

A man you recognize as being from R&D - Will, you think his name is - and another woman from your department, Rosa, flank you on either side, both stooped down with their hands stacked together to hold your feet.

You take a deep breath, swallowing thickly to try and ignore the anxiety slowly tightening your chest. You fucking hate this, you hate being lifted, you hate heights, you hate this whole fucking scenario, already able to imagine the dozens of ways this lift will fail and you will fall painfully onto the ground, but you grip Will’s shoulder in one hand and Rosa’s in the other.

“You good?” Will asks quietly, unable to fully crane his head up to look directly at you, but making the effort nonetheless.

You blow out another breath, tightening your grip slightly. “Just don’t drop me.”

Will nods, as does Rosa, and you take a steadying breath.

“You good down there?” Jeff calls, and you startle as you snap your gaze up to him and Mutt. They’re both now dropped into a crouch, ready to pull you up, and you fucking hate this.

“Here goes,” you announce to your group, shakily settling your foot into Will’s hands.

His grip immediately tightens around your shoe, and you’re grateful for at least the illusion of stability, as your limbs seem to have lost all their strength, leaving you shaking and weak with fear.

Closing your eyes tightly for just a moment, you shift your weight into Will’s hold and manage to lever yourself off the ground. Rosa doesn’t wait for your other foot to find her hands, finding and gripping your shoe in a hold that mirrors Will’s.

Your center of gravity shifts to balance between them, and your world dips for a moment at the change.

Legs fully shaking now, you desperately grasp at their shoulders, nearly out of reach with how your legs are trying to straighten and lock out, until a hand waves in front of you.

You manage to frantically tear a hand away from a shoulder to grab at Mutt, and it feels like someone has narrowed your vision to a fisheye lens as your eyes roll to look up at him. He and Jeff seem miles away, but so do Will and Rosa, and cold, roiling panic billows out in waves through your body.

Mutt’s grip is strong, however, and his pulling forces you to let go of the shoulder you’re still holding and grasp desperately at Jeff. His grip is strong as well, and you hold on for dear life as Will and Rosa begin to lift you.

Logically you know it’s a placid lift, not particularly fast without being purposefully slow, but your stomach drops slightly, and it feels like you’re being hurtled through the air rather than carefully ascending.

Scramble is the only word you can really find to describe how Jeff and Mutt get you onto the platform. You think someone on the ground might have warned about your leg or shoe nearly touching the wall but you don’t give a goddamn shit about the fucking exercise at the moment. If your foot touches the fucking wall, they can have your job for all you care.

Somehow, miraculously, you end up on the platform, on your knees, Jeff and Mutt slowly pulling you to your feet. Standing, you heave in a breath, so, so grateful for the solid wood underneath you, and reach for the railing in front of you.

“You cannot touch the railing,” the proctor interjects, and you whip your head around to stare at him in disbelief.

“Fuck off,” you choke out, grabbing back onto Mutt’s arm as you sway dangerously, “You’re fucking joking.”

“Touching the railing results in automatic failure,” the proctor continues, unmoved by your outburst. “A failure requires you to reset and try again.”

“Fuck,” you whimper, slowly inching around to turn towards your group still on the ground. From here, the distance to the ground seems almost dangerous, and you close your eyes as panic once again washes through you.

Even if you had been looking it would have been difficult to see at this distance, but with your eyes closed you definitely miss Wilhemina freeze in her chair, body tensing as she begins to realize something might be wrong.

You’re trying to just stand still, to stop the swaying you can’t seem to control and the terror that races through you every time your center of gravity shifts with your swaying, trying so hard you miss whatever the proctor is quietly explaining to the group on the ground until Jeff and Mutt each grab a shoulder and walk you back around to face the railing.

Your eyes snap open, a desperate sinking feeling flooding your chest as you grab at Jeff’s shirt to balance while you twist around to look at the ground.

Sure enough, the proctor has instructed the group on how to form a group cradle catch, and you just fucking know he expects you to fall into it.

“ _No_ ,” you begin, trembling as you turn to Jeff and Mutt, “No, no, no, I’m not fucking- _No_ , you fucking assholes- No, get me down- _Get me down!_ ”

You can tell your group on the ground has gone dead silent, but you do not give a single shit because Jeff and Mutt are not moving and you need to get off this fucking platform.

“Come on, babe,” Mutt cajoles, and you don’t even have the sense of mind to tell him off for once again calling you ‘babe’, you want him to move so you can grab the fucking railing and walk, hand over hand, to the ladder and climb down off this thing.

“I’m not doing it,” you gasp, pushing weakly at their grip on your arms, “I’m not doing it- No, no! I’ll fucking- Get me _down_.”

You are terrified. You’re not hyperventilating yet, but you can feel the panicked adrenaline pinging through your chest and up into your head, and if someone doesn’t get you off this _goddamn fucking platform_ you’re definitely going to start crying.

It seems so stupid that you were up there with Jeff and Mutt, who were fucking _Jeff and Mutt_ , and didn’t notice their unsubtle pushes and shoves to place you where they wanted you, but all things considered you _were_ having a bit of a nervous breakdown so you’d argue you could be forgiven for your stupidity in this particular scenario.

That’s an argument to make to yourself in another moment, however, as Jeff hooks a toe around the back of your ankle, Mutt getting the other one, and, uncaring, they push you off the platform.

At the first moment of freefall, your heart slams up into your throat, and you scream.

The drop is maybe four feet, a matter of seconds between falling and being caught.

You _scream_.

The toes at the back of your ankles force your body to fall in an arc rather than a haphazard angle, putting you in the best position to be caught.

You **_scream_**.

Arms catch your flailing body, and you might clip someone’s shoulder with your elbow as your body instinctively tries to right itself. You wouldn’t know; the world is spinning and terrifying and you’re still screaming and now you’re sobbing between screams. 

You end up on the ground, not that it does any good as your whole body is shaking in fear and all you can manage is to bring your legs up towards your chest as you shield your face.

_“WHAT THE **FUCK** DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”_

Oh god.

_Mina_.

You’d forgotten in your panic that she was watching, and now she’s just seen you make a fool of yourself in front of not only your coworkers but her bosses.

You scramble to right yourself but you can’t- Your arms are shaking and you keep falling over and all you’re doing is scratching pitifully at the ground but- 

_Mina_. 

A shadow falls over you, and you know, you just _know_ it’s her and-

“M- Ms. V- Ven- V-”

You can’t breathe, you can’t fucking breathe, you keep sucking air in but you can’t force it out, and she’s watching you and you’re making a fool of yourself and you’re sobbing-

You’re fucking this up in the worst possible way.

You try again to stand, managing to get your legs under you but still collapsing in a pile on the ground.

You told her, you _told_ her you wouldn’t embarrass her in public, wouldn’t be the weak link in her impenetrable armor, you told her you could keep your relationship separate from work-

(But right now, you want your Mina. You want the woman that holds you like you’ll disappear, that touches you like she can’t believe you’ve given her permission to do so. You want the woman that sets aside her rules to make you happy, who judges the world but has never judged you.

You want the woman that only exists when the rest of the world isn’t looking, and you feel guilty for being so weak.)

One more time, you try to stand one more time, still sobbing, still shaking, still sucking in air you try to get your lungs to release, and one more time you fall.

This time, however, you fall against another body.

* * *

The staff of Kineros Robotics have, at times, seen Wilhemina Venable stalk through the hallways and boardrooms of the building at what could unanimously be agreed was a fast clip. 

None of them, even Jeff and Mutt, have ever seen her move as quickly as she does the moment you’re lowered to the ground.

Her frantic, bellowing demand to her employers comes at about the halfway mark of closing the distance between the two of you, and everyone assembled is sure there would be more bellowing to follow if your sudden scrambling reaction to her voice hadn’t sent an honest spike of fear flickering across her face.

That fear only returns when you try and fail to stutter out her name, revealing your ongoing panic, and grows when you keep trying to stand despite your body’s shaking.

She falls to her knees the moment she’s close enough, managing to catch you in her lap and pull you to her chest.

“ _I’m here_ ,” she breathes frantically, tucking you under her chin and beginning to rock you back and forth, “ _I’m here, I’m here, my sweet girl, I’m here, little one._ ”

Your crying hitches for a moment before your sobs become even more hiccupped, but she shushes you gently, pressing kisses to the top of your head even as your hands claw and scratch for fistfuls of her shirt.

Her full attention on you provides enough of a distraction for Jeff and Mutt to dive under the railing off the back side of the platform and take a wide loop through the woods back to the cabins, and the rest of the group, proctor included, find a way to scatter and disappear quickly, leaving the two of you alone for the long minutes it takes for you to begin to calm.

* * *

“Shhh,” you hear her coo again, stroking your hair away from your face, and you choke on a sob as emotion once again bubbles up in your chest.

“No, no,” she tries to soothe, pressing her cheek against your forehead, “Breathe for me my sweet girl, that’s it, just breathe.”

It takes a moment, but you suck in a long, shaky breath and force it back out with only slight resistance.

She hums out a pleased little sound, and you bury your face deeper into her chest in shame. How embarrassed she must be, to have this display occur in front of Kineros staff, and how disappointed she must be in you, unable to calm yourself without her help.

You try to wriggle away, to push out of her grip, but she clicks her tongue and holds you tighter. 

“Give me ten more deep breaths and we’ll see if you can stand up.”

The first two go fine, still shaky but controlled. The third hitches a bit in the middle, but you get through it. Four gives you trouble, but you want to be up and saving face as quickly as possible, so you really concentrate and eek it out. Five and six are the smoothest yet, and the last four lose the lingering shakiness completely.

“Good girl,” Wilhemina praises softly, but you’re too shame-faced to even enjoy the tenderness behind it.

You try again to push off her hold, and true to her word she lets you go, but allows her touch to linger as you move around.

Trying to stand takes a few attempts, mostly long pauses as your blood pressure levels itself out, but you manage to get upright around the same time Wilhemina levers herself up using her cane.

“Oh,” you mutter apologetically as you reach out to support Wilhemina at the elbow, “I’m sorry, I should’ve-”

She cuts you off with a hand brushing down your cheek and a short shake of her head. Your body is too tired to even blush in shame, but you feel the failure nonetheless.

Will chooses that moment to pull up with the golf cart Wilhemina had been using to travel throughout the camp, and you’re exhausted enough to allow yourself to be bundled into the front seat and let them sort out driving. You close your eyes as you settle in, and eagerly anticipate being able to curl up in your dorm bed for a couple of hours.

* * *

The adrenaline crash is in full effect by the time the golf cart comes to a stop, and you let yourself be guided onto your feet and into the building by Wilhemina with only a bleary squint of your eyes. 

You immediately notice, however, that you are very pointedly not in your assigned communal dorm.

“Is this- Is this your room?” you ask sleepily, glancing around the decent-sized cabin. You can see Wilhemina’s trunk suitcases tidily stacked in the corner and one of her personal blankets folded at the end of the bed.

“You need to lay down,” Wilhemina explains quietly, pressing a hand against your lower back in an attempt to guide you towards the bed, “And this is quieter than those dormitories.”

“Wilhemina,” you argue tiredly, wanting nothing more than to slump into her bed and sleep, but knowing you’ve already irreversibly muddied the waters of the separation between your relationship and your job and not wanting to fuck this up any more than you already have, “Is this really a good idea?”

Behind you, you can’t see how Wilhemina tenses at your words, her eyes slowly going cold and blank as she pulls herself up imperiously, but you can hear the terseness in her tone when she speaks.

“Or perhaps you’d rather be elsewhere. Forgive me for being accommodating.”

_“I’m_ **_sorry_** _, alright!”_ you burst out, turning around to stare at her, teary-eyed and exhausted. 

She looks nearly poleaxed at your reaction, and you just feel more shame at being unable to fix this mess you’ve created.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat brokenly, stepping back to put space between the two of you, “You don’t have to explain how you had to pick up my mess in front of half the office, Wilhemina, I _get it_ and I’m _sorry_.”

She looks at you for a long, long moment, blinking occasionally, surprise still on her face as you stare back, defeated.

“Is that what you think?” she finally questions, her tone low, “That I did all of this out of some kind of _pity_?”

Her nostrils flare as she asks the question, and you can tell she’s upset at the implication.

“ _No_ ,” you’re quick to correct, hands flexing in frustration as you try to figure out how to explain yourself, “Not pity, just… you shouldn’t have needed to- It shouldn’t have been a choice you had to make in the first place.”

There really isn’t enough energy left in you to keep standing, and so you allow yourself to sit heavily on the edge of the bed, rubbing your eyes as you try to will some kind of second wind into your veins.

“You underestimate how much of a choice I had.”

You tilt your head up to stare at her blearily, not quite following her train of thought.

She steps forward, closing the distance you’d made, and trails her fingertips down your cheek. At her touch, your face instinctively turns to follow her fingers, and she smiles softly as she watches you.

“You seem to think caring for you is something I turn off when it becomes inconvenient,” she all but whispers, thumbing the corner of your lips as your eyes snap to hers. “I can assure you, it isn’t.”

You make an incredulous noise of protest in your throat before you can even get words out to begin to argue with that patently ridiculous statement. Of course her feelings don’t run on a switch, and you’ve just about gathered your thoughts enough to articulate that when she begins to carefully slither down to her knees in front of you at the foot of the bed.

“ _Mina_ ,” you protest worriedly, eyes wide as you try and fail to get some sort of grip on her waist or hips in order to stop her descent, “your back. _Don’t-_ ”

“Then listen to me,” she orders, coming to rest on her knees in between your splayed legs, eyes dark as fathoms as she stares up at you. You stare back, surprised but obedient, and she once again draws her fingers so, so gently down your cheek.

“I will say this _once_ ,” she warns, voice rumbling, and you nod in understanding at her questioning look. 

Leaning in, she balances her cane against the bed to wrap one arm around your waist, pulling the both of you until you have no choice but to meet in the middle, faces tilted together and hovering mere inches apart. Glancing between your eyes, she smiles softly once more, and at this distance you can see the flush that kisses the apples of her cheeks with color, a phenomenon you’ve never tired of. You can’t help but lay a kiss to that dusting of color, moving from one cheek to another, and you watch delightedly as it darkens with Mina’s realization you can see her blush.

“ _Nothing_ is more important to me than you,” she breathes quietly, her confession sudden as it flutters against your lips. 

Your hands flex into a tighter grip from where they’d ended up on her shoulders, and your chest pounds with how much you know it must have taken for your usually-quiet Mina to vocalize such a feeling.

“Most certainly not the opinions of people I know to be inferior,” she continues with a smirk, attempting to soften the emotion of what she’s just said, and you let it slide, let her have her control, but still draw her into a tender kiss.

Her mouth falters against yours for a moment before she returns the kiss, both of you slowly sinking into the push and pull of the separation and draw of each other’s lips. 

The emotions of the day swirl kaleidoscopically behind your eyes, most notably how your heart pounds with Mina’s confession, but your lingering embrace is all you really have the energy to maintain, and even that begins to wane. Mina, you’re sure, doesn’t even have to sense your exhaustion; it must be written on your face as you finally separate to look at each other.

She tilts her head with an arch of her brow, and you smile with a small laugh as you nod in acquiescence - you’ll lay down to rest.

First, though, you help as best you can with your weakened limbs to get Mina up off the floor. Once she’s upright, you wait to make sure she’s got her balance before you slowly plod your way on your hands and knees to the top of the bed, not even bothering with the sheets before flopping onto the pillows.

Mina hums disapprovingly, but you sleepily grin into the pillow all the same when she rounds the bed to wrestle the covers out from under you, tucking you in as your body immediately relaxes into much-needed sleep.

* * *

_Something_ half wakes you. You’re not quite sure what it is; right now you’re warm and loose and drifting in a cocoon that’s shifting slowly around you. 

The warmth begins to draw away, and you whine as you paw at it, suddenly realizing it’s Mina as she attempts to gently shush you.

“I’m right here, little one,” she whispers against your skin, pressing a kiss to your forehead, “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

You still whine when she slides out of bed, huffing slightly as she tucks the covers back around you to seal in the warmth of your little nest.

Your senses drift in your half-awake state, growing a little clearer with every noise you hear - the rustle of Mina’s clothing, the tap of her cane on the cabin floor, the metallic jostle of the doorknob turning, the creaking swing of the door opening, the sound of your own breathing in the quiet that follows.

There’s a _crack_ that breaks the relative silence, flooding you with alertness, and you struggle your way into halfway sitting up in bed, enough to see directly across the cabin and to the open door where Mina fills the space, bristled and puffed up fit to make her seem twice her size.

By her feet you can just barely see around her legs to identify the crumpled form of Mutt scrambling away on the outside porch. 

Mina twitches slightly, whole body lunging forward, and the form of Jeff flies past the visible gap as though he’s sprinting off.

Once Jeff disappears and the figure of Mutt manages to claw his way to a point you can no longer see him, there’s a long beat of silence where Mina settles back into her skin, closing the door with a decisive puff of air.

You watch dumbly as she turns around and walks back towards the bed, notably holding her cane at her side rather than using it for support. 

There’s little question in your mind what you just were privy to hearing and seeing, but you are far too tired to try and process the idea that your girlfriend just cane-whipped one of your mutual bosses and was fully ready to swing at the other one upon seeing their faces after they pushed you into a panic attack. 

Any chance of arguing something else might have happened goes out the window as you watch Mina set her cane against the bedside table, the silver crow’s head grip marred with blood you are positive is not hers.

You catch each other’s eyes as you look away from her cane, and there’s a sharp, feral glint in her gaze as she regards you curled up under the covers.

“Nothing is more important to me than you,” she repeats in a throaty whisper, drawing a finger possessively down the length of your jaw, “ _Nothing_.”

**Author's Note:**

> The wooden structure is real, as is that trust fall exercise. No panic attacks were incurred by me at the time, that came much later.


End file.
